Re: Better alternative to GIMP

Everything you can do in Photoshop you can do with GIMP. You'll get the same results, it only requires a little bit more effort, but in the end it's worth it and you're just more proud.

Photoshop is designed the way that it does most things for the user and in the end you'll end up asking "who did that? was it the artist, or the program?" Sorry, but that is just lame.

This is an incredibly misleading statement. Both parts of it.

1. You cannot do everything with GIMP. For instance, there is no free transform tool in GIMP, and no even remote substitutions for it exist. In the roadmap it currently has a rather low priority.

It's also not possible to make non-destructive changes such as adjustment layers or layer effects. The only existing bunch of scripts for layer effects provide a similar UI, but you can't adjust settings after you applied an effect. So you have to redo things again and again. And that's just loss of time.

2. Photoshop isn't designed that way. It's designed to remove as many roadblock as possible and to unclutter the work of its users. So that they could focus on actual work. Hence your argument about "who did the work" simply doesn't apply unless for some obscure reason you were referring to extensive use of third-party actions. Which anyway isn't what everybody mostly does.

So let's be honest. Just because GIMP is free, and Photoshop is proprietary, GIMP-powered designs aren't true art by humans, and Photoshop-powered designs aren't computer generated art.

Similarly, GIMP doesn't provide all the features that Photoshop has. Some of these features are irrelevant for most users, but a lot of them are quite important and help you complete your work faster.

Originally Posted by barretiano

Hello everybody,
i like to ask for your help please , how /where do i get any old version of GIMP the new one is a nightmare for me

I suppose 12.10 ships 2.8 now? In that case you will have to build 2.6 yourself.

sudo apt-get build-dep gimp

will get you all dependencies

then you can fetch sources and do the usual

./configure && make && sudo make install

routine.

Originally Posted by SpeedGonzales

I've tried MyPaint and find it frustrating that you cannot zoom in using the mouse wheel.

Re: Better alternative to GIMP

1. You cannot do everything with GIMP. For instance, there is no free transform tool in GIMP, and no even remote substitutions for it exist. In the roadmap it currently has a rather low priority.

It's also not possible to make non-destructive changes such as adjustment layers or layer effects. The only existing bunch of scripts for layer effects provide a similar UI, but you can't adjust settings after you applied an effect. So you have to redo things again and again. And that's just loss of time.

2. Photoshop isn't designed that way. It's designed to remove as many roadblock as possible and to unclutter the work of its users. So that they could focus on actual work. Hence your argument about "who did the work" simply doesn't apply unless for some obscure reason you were referring to extensive use of third-party actions. Which anyway isn't what everybody mostly does.

So let's be honest. Just because GIMP is free, and Photoshop is proprietary, GIMP-powered designs aren't true art by humans, and Photoshop-powered designs aren't computer generated art.

Similarly, GIMP doesn't provide all the features that Photoshop has. Some of these features are irrelevant for most users, but a lot of them are quite important and help you complete your work faster.

The only real difference between GIMP and Photoshop is that with GIMP things require more effort than with Photoshop, cause Photoshop has a few tools GIMP doesn't, but that doesn't mean you cannot reproduce those effects. It may take more time, more effort, but you can reproduce things in GIMP.

The only real difference between GIMP and Photoshop is that with GIMP things require more effort than with Photoshop, cause Photoshop has a few tools GIMP doesn't, but that doesn't mean you cannot reproduce those effects.

Nope, it actually means exactly that: you can't do certain things at all (like the free transformation or deep painting), and doing other things with GIMP is counterproductive.

Re: Better alternative to GIMP

Originally Posted by Anathaen

I don't get your picture what's wrong with GIMP. I've been using it for a while and can loudly state "Who needs Photoshop anyway?" Everything you can do in Photoshop you can do with GIMP. You'll get the same results, it only requires a little bit more effort, but in the end it's worth it and you're just more proud.

Originally Posted by prokoudine

This is an incredibly misleading statement. Both parts of it.

1. You cannot do everything with GIMP. For instance, there is no free transform tool in GIMP, and no even remote substitutions for it exist. In the roadmap it currently has a rather low priority.

I am a user of Gimp. You can indeed do everything in Gimp that you can do in Photoshop. I have used Gimp for about a month now. I have used PS, PSP, Fireworks, and a host of other top Imaging Programs over the last ten years. I found it hard to believe that a free program would be as powerful as the top paid programs until I downloaded Gimp and used it. There is a free transform tool in Gimp. It's called the cage tool. You use it like you would the pen/path tool to outline the parts of an object you want to transform. If you put points around the whole object, then you can free transform certain parts of the object from that point and then on to the next point etc. It's actually better than the free transform tool in PS. As for the other arguments, I believe that Anathaen mentioned that even though it would require "more" work, you can perform all of the same functions in Gimp that you can in PS. I for one do not use any pads or laser pens and prefer to draw with my mouse (mostly using the pen tool). I agree with Anathaen and think it is refreshing to actually have to create your own work/images instead of doing a lot of button mashing.

Re: Better alternative to GIMP

Originally Posted by Jorhyan

I am a user of Gimp. You can indeed do everything in Gimp that you can do in Photoshop.

— No, you can't
— Yes, you can!
— ...and so on'

LOL

If you say that you really used "PS, PSP, Fireworks, and a host of other top Imaging Programs over the last ten years", then you obviously didn't find any use for lots of features in them. In other words, your use of the apps was very limited.

Originally Posted by Jorhyan

There is a free transform tool in Gimp. It's called the cage tool.

They are different tools. Each of them is better than the other for certain tasks. Just use them long enough to understand the difference.

Re: Better alternative to GIMP

Here Here!
I used photoshop for a few years around the time I switched to Ubuntu, and I found GIMP and I could do everything better actually than photoshop. Plus all of the options provided by the GIMP plugin registry just made it to appealing to ever go back!

Re: Better alternative to GIMP

Wow, what a conversation. I've been pretty happy with Gimp and prefer the newer version because I like having everything in one window. Have never even tried Photoshop. All that said, I'm always curious about something new, so thanks for the info about Pinta. I'll have to give it a try.

Re: Better alternative to GIMP

OK, very nice. I like that it can zoom to more than 800%. I like that it's features are all the basic, most used ones. Had a little trouble figuring how to crop, also how to how many kilobytes I'm optimising to. I'll have to play around with it more. Not much for a user manual though. Haven't tried it for actual painting yet, but I don't do much of that anyway.